Washington -- Lloyd Cutler, 87, a Washington legal mandarin for six decades who served as White House counsel under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, died Sunday at his home. He had complications from a broken hip.
Cutler was a commanding presence among the capital's power elite and at home in the highest levels of industry, government and politics. He was a founding partner of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, one of the city's leading law firms.
Cutler was a Democrat who was nonpartisan in his legal work. His clients ranged from liberal advocacy groups to big business, including trade associations for cars, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
At times, he assisted prominent Republicans such as former Secretaries of State George Shultz, Henry Kissinger and James A. Baker III. He once was an arbiter for the Rolling Stones during a disagreement with the band's manager, and, in perhaps one of his least heralded success stories, once persuaded Mick Jagger to wear a necktie at the Metropolitan Club.
Cutler had admirers who liked to highlight his pro bono work dating from the civil rights battles of the 1960s. He co-chaired a group called Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, formed at the request of President Kennedy. He also played a major role in organizing lawyers to defend those whose civil rights had been violated for protesting segregation as well as those arrested during the riots spurred by the killing of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Lloyd Norton Cutler was born Nov. 10, 1917, in New York. His father, a trial lawyer, was a law partner of Fiorello La Guardia, a future congressman and New York mayor.
Cutler graduated from Yale in 1936 at the age of 18 with a bachelor's degree in history and economics. Three years later, he graduated magna cum laude from Yale Law School.
After a court clerkship, he worked briefly for a Wall Street law firm, where he handled railroad reorganizations. He moved to Washington during World War II to work for the Lend-Lease Administration and also spent time in Army intelligence.
At war's end, he became the youngest partner of a new law firm. He handled antitrust work; helped government employees hounded by Sen. Joseph McCarthy for alleged Communist links; and aided industrialists, such as Henry J. Kaiser, interested in opening plants in the United States and abroad.
In 1962, he co-founded Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering.
In 1979, he was brought into the Carter White House as counsel to the president. He worked on the effort to persuade the Senate to ratify the SALT II arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union. The ratification was doomed by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Cutler was called back to the White House in 1994 to serve Clinton temporarily during the imbroglio surrounding the Whitewater real estate fiasco.
More recently, he served on the commission that reviewed the quality of U.S. intelligence gathering leading to the war in Iraq.
The man was 87 years old.